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KIRKUS REVIEW

Bunting and Ruzzier team up for
another rollicking, rhyming search (Have You Seen My New Blue Socks?,
2013), this time for the owner of a lone shoe.

“There’s something in that tall
bamboo. // Oh, my goodness! It’s a shoe! / Finders keepers? That’s not true. /
I’ll find the owner of this shoe.” The shoe, a blue-and-yellow saddle shoe,
dwarfs Mouse, but the rodent persists in its search, its polite manners drawing
(somewhat didactic) comments from the animals it meets. It’s way too small for
Tiger, too big for Spider, and useless for a bird that flies. It’s not one of
Hippo’s four pairs, and Elephant only wears heels, for their slimming effect on
ankles and legs. Finally, Kangaroo admits to chucking the painful new shoe and
offers it to Mouse, who is quite pleased to have it…as a bed. The text and
illustrations both evoke old-fashioned early readers (the morals and manners may
seem old-fashioned to some as well), though their modern-day counterparts lack
the challenging vocabulary: dainty, catastrophe, pursue, inquiring, inspiring,
decline, astounded, considerate. Ruzzier’s pen, ink, and watercolor artwork
uses spare details and white space to draw readers’ eyes.

It’s an enjoyable read-aloud, but it
feels cast a little too closely in its predecessor’s mold and lacks the
previous book’s freshness. (Picture book. 4-8)

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